Monday Ramblings

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, fine folks. It's been a few weeks since we've taken some time for the holidays with our families and are now ready to help you push for the championship in the last half of the season. This week in the Ramblings is just going to trot around the league and throw out some notes about some guys who have been putting up positive numbers as of late. Strap in.

December 6 - January 6 GSAA leaders

Linus Ullmark / OTT - 7GP, 0.965 SV%, GSAA 12.84
Darcy Kuemper / LAK - 9GP, 0.937 SV%, GSAA 9.25
Mackenzie Blackwood / COL - 9GP, 0.936 SV%, GSAA 9.15
Connor Hellebuyck / WPG - 11GP, 0.924 SV%, GSAA 0.924
Andrei Vasilevskiy / TBL - 9GP, 0.921 SV%, GSAA 5.25
Stuart Skinner / EDM - 9GP, 0.917 SV%, GSAA 4.35
Sergei Bobrovsky / FLA - 9GP, 0.917 SV%, GSAA 4.25
Jacob Markstrom / NJD - 10GP, 0.922 SV%, GSAA 4.24
Filip Gustavsson / MIN - 8GP, 0.917 SV%, GSAA 4.15
Logan Thompson / WSH - 7GP, 0.921 SV%, GSAA 4.14

A few things to note here, Linus Ullmark is injured and has been for a few weeks. He was the hottest goaltender in the league starting the moment I traded him away in one league. He managed to allow just seven goals in his last seven games played before injury, including two shutouts in his last five. Yowza.

Kuemper has quietly been putting together a great season in LA and in his last three starts has managed to hold Edmonton, New Jersey, and Tampa to three, zero, and one goal respectively in three wins. He has been getting a ton of time in the net lately and seems to have completely eclipsed David Rittich in that sense while doing it in fashion.

It has to be incredibly frustrating for Jesper Wallstedt to watch the year Filip Gustavsson is putting together for Minnesota. For Bill Guerin, he is waking up in the middle of the night and falling right back asleep after reminding himself of these numbers. Gustavsson in his last 18 games played has only allowed more than three goals twice. There’s two shutouts mixed in there as well. He has the net, even in Marc-Andre Fleury’s final season. I’m excited to see if he can maintain this all year, and if I were a betting man I would be siding with Filip.

TOI Leaders last 15 team games

Connor Hellebuyck - 1925:45
Juuse Saros - 1805:58
Jacob Markstrom - 1734.49
Jeremy Swayman - 1710:40
Ilya Sorokin - 1703:33
Andrei Vasilevskiy - 1697:13
Samuel Montembeault - 1688:31
Jake Oettinger - 1683:04
Jordan Binnington - 1677:07
Filip Gustavsson - 1609:30
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen - 1604:31
Elvis Merzlikins - 1564:22
Sergei Bobrovsky - 1551:25
Kevin Lankinen - 1534:45
Stuart Skinner - 1532:00

Hellebuyck continues to lead the way in TOI and that’s probably not due to change this season or the next. With the extradition of Alexandar Georgiev to the white sandy beaches of San Jose, there’s a new TOI leader in the clubhouse for goalies going forward.

Kevin Lankinen has white knuckled his way back into the top job in Vancouver after Thatcher Demko suffered another injury. Check out the Injury Ward Wednesday on Dobberhockey for updates on that situation. Lankinen has more than held his own this season when he was thrust into the starter role due to Demko’s lingering (and apparently never going away) knee injury. The Canucks are usually about half the team they are expected to be when Quinn Hughes is out of the lineup, so him seemingly nearing a return should help any starter on this team massively.

Samuel Montembeault may see his share drop a little with the coming out of Jakub Dobes this past week since he came screaming through the gates with a shutout against Florida and followed it up later on in the week with a one goals against performance to take the shootout win against Colorado. The six foot four inch tall 23-year-old of Ostrava, Czech Republic has a 9-3-1 record this season with the AHL’s Laval Rocket while maintaining a .910 SV% during that time. One small note, Cayden Primeau was sent down to Laval through waivers on December 29th to bring up Dobes after struggling this season in the NHL.

Elvis Merzlikins is someone on this list that I would tend to want to stay away from. Just like Zach Werenski helping his team to score four goals a game lately, Merzlikins is on that same spectrum but is just as likely to allow four from the other team. His last eight games played for goals allowed are as follows: 4, 5, 3, 2, 5, 2, 4, and 5. That is some ugly stuff. Now, some of this may be attributed to team defence, but the bottom line is that you don’t know what nights this guy is going to help or hinder.

As always, everybody thank you all for reading and please give me a follow over on Twitter/X @LOGoalz. I am usually quick to respond to people for any advice and/or banter you’d like to throw my way. Have a great week everyone.